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Juan Gabriel Vasquezbooks include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana.

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Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

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Overview

With Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, G. I. Gurdjieff intended to “destroy, mercilessly . . . the beliefs and views about everything existing in the world.” This novel beautifully brings to life the visions of humanity for which Gurdjieff has become esteemed. Beelzebub, a man of worldly (and other-worldly) wisdom, shares with his grandson the anecdotes, personal philosophies, and lessons learned from his own life.The reader is given a detailed discussion of all matters physical, natural, and spiritual, from the creation of the cosmos to man’s teleological purpose in the universe. This edition of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson–the first single-volume paperback to appear in English–restores the original, authoritative translation.

Table of Contents

Beelzebub’s Tales to His GrandsonFirst Book1. The Arousing of Thought2. Introduction: Why Beelzebub Was in Our Solar System3. The Cause of the Delay in the Falling of the Ship Karnak4. The Law of Falling5. The System of Archangel Hariton6. Perpetual Motion7. Becoming Aware of Genuine Being-Duty8. The Impudent Brat Hassein, Beelzebub’s Grandson, Dares to Call Men “Slugs”9. The Cause of the Genesis of the Moon10. Why “Men” Are Not Men11. A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man12. The First “Growl”13. Why in Man’s Reason Fantasy May Be Perceived as Reality14. The Beginnings of Perspectives Promising Nothing Very Cheerful15. The First Descent of Beelzebub upon the Planet Earth16. The Relative Understanding of Time17. The Arch-absurd: According to the Assertion of Beelzebub, Our Sun Neither Lights nor Heats18. The Arch-preposterous19. Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent onto the Planet Earth20. The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth21. The First Visit of Beelzebub to India22. Beelzebub for the First Time in Tibet23. The Fourth Personal Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth24. Beelzebub’s Flight to the Planet Earth for the Fifth Time25. The Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, Sent from Above to the Earth26. The Legominism Concerning the Deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash Under the Title of “The Terror-of-the-Situation”27. The Organization for Man’s Existence28. The Chief Culprit in the Destruction of All the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash

Second Book 29. The Fruits of Former Civilizations and the Blossoms of the Contemporary30. Art31. The Sixth and Last Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth32. Hypnotism33. Beelzebub as Professional Hypnotist34. Russia35. A Change in the Appointed Course of the Falling of the Transspace Ship Karnak36. Just a Wee Bit More About the Germans37. France38. Religion39. The Holy Planet “Purgatory”

Third Book 40. Beelzebub Tells How People Learned and Againt Forgot About the Fundamental Cosmic Law of Heptaparaparshinokh41. The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov42. Beelzebub in America43. Beelzebub’s Survey of the Process of the Periodic Reciprocal Destruction of Men, or Beelzebub’s Opinion of War44. In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man’s Understanding of Justice Is for Him in the Objective Sense an Accursed Mirage45. In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man’s Extraction of Electricity from Nature and Its Destruction During Its Use, Is One of the Chief Causes of the Shortening of the Life of Man46. Beelzebub Explains to His Grandson the Significance of the Form and Sequence Which He Chose for Expounding the Information Concerning Man47. The Inevitable Result of Impartial Mentation48. From the Author